Mayhew International visit to Moscow March 2009

 

Monday 2nd March

My first impressions of Moscow are that I don't think I brought enough warm clothes!

Tuesday 3rd March

The morning was spent trying to pin down various many Moscow City Government departments, representatives and radio presenters for meetings over the next few days. Unfortunately, we were unable to arrange a meeting with Tunik, Chief Vet of Moscow who was apparently busy all week, despite acknowledging our visit by telephone the week prior to coming to Moscow. We also picked up a camcorder for filming.

Wednesday 4th March

Attended a courtesy meeting with the Vice-Prefect of the Eastern Administrative Region of Moscow. He had been over to London on an official visit to see The Mayhew last October when we discussed the animal welfare situation in Moscow and how to implement a feasible system for stray dog management in Moscow. At the meeting he arranged for us to be taken on an official visit to the “mega-shelter” in his region the following day.

Unfortunately, the meeting arranged with “Yabloko” MP, Mitrokhin was cancelled due to ill-health.
We travelled across Moscow to meet up with the vet we sponsor to carry out sterilisations on dogs and cats under the umbrella of Moscow Animals and various hoarding cases in Moscow. Natasha has surgery while we are there, with lines and lines of knocked out cats waiting to get sterilised. Some cats were from Moscow Animals apartment shelters. Her phone was ringing constantly with clients. Her own rescue cats looked on while surgery was in progress.
Back to the other side of Moscow, where we met up with Katya Volkova (Moscow Animals) and Irina Unanyan and other representatives of the Union of Foster-Carers of Homeless Animals – a loose group of concerned individuals battling with the City Government to be able to look after the street animals in their communities. They have become a real thorn in the side of the City Authorities and indeed, are heavily emotionally involved. It is quite obvious they find the situation very stressful.
We saw a group of about 13 dogs, kept in makeshift outdoor kennels in a fenced off area. All the dogs were sterilised, vaccinated and looked well looked after, if somewhat overweight and wary of strangers. The retired/elderly ladies feed and clean up after them and try to keep the barking under control – this is a cause of tension within the residential area as the dogs exhibit guarding characteristics when strangers come close. 
The dogs are fed porridge and solidified stock/gravy/brawn and plenty of it.
In their respective flats, the ladies have varying numbers of cats and dogs, which present the obvious problems stemming from over capacity. We were also shown a community of semi-feral cats in the basement of one of the apartment blocks.

Thursday 5th March
This morning we took part in a recorded interview with Exo Moskvii - one of the radio stations in Moscow – together with Irina Unanyan. We were asked how animal welfare organisations and shelters function in the UK and how we think that can be transposed to Moscow and what obstacles there are to achieving this end.

In the afternoon, we met up once again with the Vice Prefect who took us to the mega-shelter, which was situated over an hour’s drive outside of Moscow in a quite isolated area known as Kozhukovo. Despite assurances from him that it was not The Mayhew or yet even Battersea, he informed us that there was personnel there and the dogs presently there were sterilised and vaccinated and even exercised. There were also volunteers, although the authorities have already banned certain individuals from the shelter as they are complaining to vociferously about conditions there. We had been informed by some of these volunteers that dogs were dying of starvation, cold, disease in the shelter and what we would be seeing would be a “show”. 
We were told the shelter had a capacity for 2500 dogs but had presently 750-800. These are caught by dog-catchers, apparently sterilised and then brought to the shelter.
We were introduced to the Director of the Shelter and then the Chief Vet. The noise from the kennels was deafening. It appeared that 2 “sectors” are being used at the moment but the shelter should be working at full capacity in about 6 months. There was also a large building which is going to function as the veterinary block. At present there is no clinic and no surgeries carried out. We were shown a couple of room that are earmarked for operating theatres. We saw one operating table and surgical lamp, autoclave and fridge. Other rooms were described as post-op recovery areas, these had radiators inside. Several large empty rooms were described as kitchens, where we were shown a large amount of dry food in bags and some boxes of tinned food. (We were informed by dissident volunteers that the food is often out of date and of poor quality.) They use dry food on our recommendation but there is no liquid and wet food topping, making it unpalatable for many dogs. There seemed to be no provision of dietary foods for dogs with medical conditions. Other rooms were designated as offices for veterinary personnel. 
On asking the Director if he had adopted a dog from the shelter in order to kick-start an adoption programme, he replied no and wouldn’t recommend taking on a rescue animal. Naturally we found this surprising. We walked around the facility accompanied by the Chief Vet.
The kennels are poorly designed and built. All the cages were facing one another which meant the dogs started frantically barking when anyone went close to them. There were one; two or three dogs to a kennel. Each kennel had an approx. 2m square open front area and then a boxed in back area with a small wooden flap to get in and out. The boxed in area was meant as a sleeping area. The floors and walls half way up are made of wood, the remainder is metal grills. It is well-known that wooden floors are the worst materials for such kennels as wood absorbs urine and faeces and is impossible to keep clean, making then a breeding ground for the spread of disease. We were told the wood had been treated with some kind of waterproof coating but it was clear the floors were absorbing any liquid present. We were told that cleaning of the kennels took place daily but from the amount of urine and faeces in the kennels it was clear this was not the case. The only floor coverings were sawdust and hay/straw. There was no heating of any kind and the kennels were open to the elements. We saw evidence of food in bowls and water in buckets, but the vessels used were not ideal as some dogs had difficulty getting down to the water level in high-sided standard domestic pails. There were no drainage channels in front of the kennels.
The kennel doors open outwards, a safety hazard for staff and dogs alike. We asked about personnel and training of personnel. Several staff members were non-ethnic Russians, most probably from the Central Asian republics. The Chief Vet said he spoke to them about how to go in and out of the kennels but there was no formal training.
We asked to see how a staff member entered a kennel where there could be an aggressive dog. The Chief Vet had to ask the Director’s assistant to ask one of the kennel hands if he would enter a kennel where there were 3 very excitable dogs. This he did and the dogs promptly escaped.
On asking about exercise and dog walking we were shown 2 fenced in open areas which had groups of dogs in them. None of the dogs were allowed out of the compound, even though the shelter was built surrounded by fields and woods. There seemed to be no training with leads, long-leads, collars etc. Groups of dogs just shoved willy-nilly into these open areas without assessment for temperament and if they get on with other dogs. This didn't seem to be a concern for them so I witnessed the area to test the theory and they allowed all the animals which had just escaped to run into the pen where predictably they all were violent with one another at first. From the behaviour exhibited by many of the dogs there, we  would say that it is unlikely they are exercised enough or at all and imagine that the majority do not get out of the cages at all as the staff have no way on handling them safely. As mentioned they presently have one vet for the 750-800 dogs in the shelter but a team of 30 vets in planned with a further 20 vet assistants. Although the vet had visited Germany and the ProAnimale organisation, he admitted to having little knowledge of small animal surgery. When questioned about flank-spaying for example, he considered that to be a poor quality procedure.
Of course, in these conditions there was no evidence of any thought of the shelter being open to the public or starting a pro-active adoption programme. It was simply a holding centre for dogs whose existence while there and future was very much in the balance.
We were allowed to film and take photographs.

From the shelter we travelled to a lady in Orekhovo, which is in the south east region of Moscow. We were advised by Natasha that this lady had over 100 cats in her apartment. We have also sponsored the sterilisation of some females. Practically all living space had a cat on it. She even had a totally blind and bald poodle. There were kittens running everywhere. She did not let them out; only a few females had been neutered. Further investigation showed that they nearly all had cat flu which is unbelievably contagious. All of them were spitting, spluttering, coughing and sneezing everywhere. She was aware of diseases they had, but although a lovely kind hearted woman she was unable to see the reality of her situation. Although her point about not knowing what else to do was fair since no one could take them into their own homes (since they are all terribly sick) and there is no shelter which would accept them. We did ask if she would consider euthanasia but predictably she would prefer battling on trying to treat them.

Later that evening we met some other older ladies who had been volunteers at the Kozhukovo shelter, but who are now barred because she makes too much noise about the problems. She showed us pictures that she took covertly before she was dismissed of deceased dogs in cages on the complex. They believed that most of what we saw today was a facade of the real situation.

Today has left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the anger and frustration at the authorities in not providing suitable provisions for people such as the cat hoarding lady who see no other viable option than to keep them all in her tiny flat and watch them all drop dead one at a time due to disease, which she still maintains is better than them freezing to death in the cold.
On the bus back we saw a pack of wild dogs running free in the snow, happily playing and rolling around and I thought to myself that maybe these animals are better off than those which I have seen today who cower in their cages or wildly attack anyone they see due to fear and boredom.

Friday 6th March

We successfully managed to arrange to visit a lady who lived in the northern outskirts of Moscow who has approximately 150 dogs under her care. On arrival we were greeted by dogs en masse. There were faeces all over the courtyard. Inside it didn’t get any better. All the living quarters were covered with dogs and faeces and the smell was terrible. Outside there were many kennels; lots of animals were held in cages because they might have had distemper and were apparently ‘mad’. All in all this was not a good example of animal welfare with many lame, diseased un-neutered animals roaming around this house. Once again an ideal breeding ground for disease. We managed to escape the poo covered jumping dog paws for long enough to point this out to the lady who ran this makeshift shelter. This was a prime example of someone who genuinely believes they are helping the animals and cannot see the appalling conditions that are detrimental to both the animals and the people.  Quite evidently though she is not alone but without a total rethink on responsible pet ownership and governmental responsibility for street animals it will no doubt continue.

Saturday 7th March
On our final day we had the opportunity to see another newly built city mega-shelter in the VDNK / Ostankino region, in the north of Moscow through a volunteer at the shelter.
This shelter was very similar to Kozhukovo. In many ways, however, the facilities provided for this shelter were even worse. The shelter housing was on two levels and designed in the same way as the shelter in Kozhukovo with the same faults. The principal problems with this one were the difficulties in getting the animals to this second tier and, more pressingly, the complete lack of animal staff. There was only three paid staff that was expected to cater for up to 1000 animals. The problems with this ratio of animals to people do not need to be explained. None of these people had any animal welfare experience and volunteers were still restricted from helping at the facility. Perhaps worst of all there was a building marked as a ‘veterinary clinic’ despite not having any veterinary facilities nor a vet! This is very concerning as none of the animals here were sterilised and some animals were just thrown in together in the hope that they were sociable with one another.

It was very disheartening to see the same problems replicated in this shelter with no concern seemingly given to the welfare of the animals and merely the removal of the dogs from the street the principal goal. Upon leaving the shelter and leaving Russia the main feeling I was hit with was how much further work is needed in this city and country as a whole. To combat this issue is not just a topical issue but a cultural battle as well and these will be the issues which we will look to address as a charity.
With luck things will have improved by the time we return.